pennyspoetryfandomcom-20200214-history
Philip Lee Williams
Template:BLP sources Philip Lee Williams (born January 30, 1950) is an American poet, novelist, and essayist noted for his explorations of the natural world, intense human relationships, and aging. Life Williams was born in Athens, Georgia, one of three children of Ruth Sisk Williams (1924–2008) and Marshall Woodson Williams (1922- ). He, his parents, and his older brother John Mark Williams (1948- ), moved to Madison, Georgia, in 1953, where Marshall Williams had accepted a job as a chemistry teacher at Morgan County High School. Williams also has a sister, Laura Jane Williams, born in 1959. Philip Williams began his creative work by composing music and writing poetry while still in his teens. He graduated from Morgan County High School in 1968 and from the University of Georgia in 1972 with a degree in journalism and minors in history and English. In 1972, he married Linda Rowley. They have two children, Brandon and Megan. He finished more than half of his master’s degree in English at the University of Georgia before sustaining a serious back injury in 1974. After that, he spent 13 years as an award-winning journalist before becoming a science writer at his alma mater in 1985. As a journalist he worked for The Clayton Tribune (Clayton, Georgia), the Athens Daily News (Athens, Ga.), The Madisonian (Madison, Ga.), and The Athens Observer (Athens, Ga.) Williams retired in 2010 from the University of Georgia, where he was a writer and taught creative writing. His novel Slow Dance in Autumn was translated into Japanese, and Final Heat into German and French. Perfect Timing was optioned for film by director Ron Howard and was a Literary Guild selection. Actress Meg Ryan optioned an unpublished novel of Williams's for her Prufrock Films Production Company as well. Williams is also a documentary film-maker whose films have won awards from the New York Film Festival, the Columbus (Ohio) Film Festival, and the Telly Awards. Among the documentaries he has written and co-produced are Hugh Kenner: A Modern Master and Eugene Odum: An Ecologist’s Life. His work has also appeared in numerous anthologies.Template:Cn Williams is also a composer and has to his credit 18 symphonies, chamber works, concerti, and much incidental and church music. Only a small amount of this has been performed in public as Williams has preferred to keep his output private.Template:Cn Writing Poetry Williams began his creative career as a poet and began publishing in small magazines while he was still an undergraduate. Williams has published poetry in journals and magazines for decades. He has published poetry in more than 40 magazines and continues in such magazines as Poetry, Karamu, and the Kentucky Poetry Review.Template:Cn Novels Williams is best known for his work as a novelist. Of his 17 published books, 12 are novels. His first novel, The Heart of a Distant Forest (Norton, 1984) is the story of a retired junior college history professor who has returned to his home place on a pond in north central Georgia to spend the last year of his life. The book won the Townsend Prize for fiction in 1986 and has subsequently come out in editions from Ballantine Books, Peachtree Publishers, and the University of Georgia Press. It was also translated into Swedish and published in a large-print format.Template:Cn Williams’s second novel, All the Western Stars (Peachtree Publisher, 1988) is the story of two old men who run away from a rest home to become cowboys on a ranch in Texas. This book also came out in an edition from Ballantine and was translated into German. Richard Zanuck and David Brown optioned the book for MGM as a film project, though it was never put into production there. (MGM hired Williams to write one version of the screenplay.) Instead, the project was picked up by Rysher Entertainment, where it was greenlighted, with Jack Lemmon and James Garner to star. When Lemmon withdrew from the project, the film was shelved and has yet to be made.Template:Cn A Distant Flame is perhaps Williams’s most notable book to date and won the 2004 Michael Shaara Award for Excellence in Civil War Fiction award. Recognition He is the winner of many literary awards including the 2004 Michael Shaara Prize for his novel A Distant Flame (St. Martin’s), an examination of southerners who were against the Confederacy’s position in the American Civil War. He is also a winner of the Townsend Prize for Fiction for his novel The Heart of a Distant Forest, and has been named Georgia Author of the Year four times. In 2007, he was recipient of a Georgia Governor’s Award in the Humanities. In 2010, Williams was inducted into the Georgia Writers Hall of Fame, alongside such luminaries as Flannery O'Connor, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., James Dickey, and fellow University of Georgia graduate Natasha Trethewey. Recent awards * The Campfire Boys - 2010 Georgia Author of the Year Award (Novel) * The Flower Seeker, An Epic Poem of William Bartram, Book of the Year, Books and Culture magazine; also Georgia Author of the Year award (Poetry) Publications Poetry *''Elegies for the Water''. Macon, GA: Mercer University Press, 2009. *''The Flower Seeker: An epic poem of William Bartram''. Macon, GA: Mercer University Press, 2010. Novels *''The Heart of a Distant Forest''. New York: Norton, 1984; New York: Ballantine, 1985; Atlanta, GA: Peachtree Publishers, 1991; Athens, GA: University of Georgia Press, 2005. *''All the Western Stars. Atlanta, GA: Peachtree Publishers, 1988; New York: Ballantine, 1989. *''Slow Dance in Autumn. Atlanta, GA: Peachtree Publishers, 1988; New York: Dell, 1990. *''The Song of Daniel. Atlanta, GA: Peachtree Publishers, 1989; New York: Ballantine, 1992. *''Perfect Timing. Atlanta, GA: Peachtree Publishers, 1991; New York: Penguin, 1992. *''Final Heat''. Turtle Bay Books, 1992. *''Blue Crystal''. New York: Grove Press, 1993. *''The True and Authentic History of Jenny Dorset''. Marietta, GA: Longstreet Press, 1997; Athens, GA: University of Georgia Press, 2001. *''A Distant Flame. New York: Thomas Dunne, 2004; New York: St. Martin’s Press, 2005. *''The Campfire Boys. Macon, GA: Mercer University Press, 2009. *''The Divine Comics: A Vaudeville Show in Three Acts''. Macon, GA: Mercer University Press, 2011.The Divine Comics: A Vaudeville Show in Three Acts (paperback), Amazon.com. Web, May 15, 2013. *''Emerson's Brother''. Macon, GA: Mercer University Press, 2012.Emerson's Brother (paperback). Web, May 15, 2013. Non-fiction *''The Silent Stars Go By: A true Christmas story''. Athens, GA: Hill Street Press, 1998. *''Crossing Wildcat Ridge: A Memoir of Nature and Healing''. Athens, GA: University of Georgia Press, 1999. w *''In the Morning: Reflections from First Light''. Macon, GA: Mercer University Press, 2006. *''It is Written: My life in letters''. Macon, GA: Mercer University Press, 2014.Search results = au:Philip Lee Williams, WorldCat, OCLC Online Computer Library Center Inc. Web, Dec. 15, 2015. Juvenile *''A Gift From Boonie, Seymour and Dog: A Christmas story''. Athens, GA: Maypop, 1994. Except where noted, bibliographical information courtesy the Georgia Writers Hall of Fame.Philip Lee Williams, Hall of Fame Honorees, Georgia Writers Hall of Fame, University of Georgia. Web, May 15, 2013. See also *List of U.S. poets References External links ;About *Philip Lee Williams in the New Georgia Encyclopedia *Philip Lee Williams at Georgia Writers Hall of Fame. *Philip Lee Williams Official website. *Recalibrating the Heart - Extensive interview with Williams] in the [http://www.ilrmagazine.net/ Istanbul Literature Review] in Turkey *[http://blogcritics.org/archives/2007/06/16/032731.php Review of A Distant Flame] by Hugh Ruppersburg on the Blogcritics web site *[http://www.nytimes.com/1984/08/05/books/in-short-111855.html?pagewanted=2 New York Times review] of Williams’s first novel, The Heart of a Distant Forest Category:Articles with authority control information Category:Created, imported, or updated in 2013 Category:1950 births Category:American novelists Category:American non-fiction writers Category:Living people Category:University of Georgia alumni Category:University of Georgia faculty Category:People from Athens, Georgia Category:People from Madison, Georgia Category:Writers from Georgia (U.S. state) Category:21st-century poets Category:American academics Category:English-language poets Category:Poets